‘Robert,’ she whispered, and rushed forward, only to be hampered by the police officer blocking her route.
‘Take it easy, Miss.’
Flick realised that appearing hysterical wouldn’t help her case, but she hadn’t appreciated the concentration of adrenaline coursing through her veins.
‘What are you doing here?’ Flick asked, while being escorted across to Robert by the police officer.
‘I heard that you needed a lawyer,’ Robert said.
‘Lucia called you?’
‘Yes. So I made a call to get you the best.’
Criminal law wasn’t Robert’s thing, and Lucia could have afforded to hire a specialist lawyer. Though depending on the required retainer, Roger may have balked. Robert wouldn’t have, though. He was decent through and through, and he would never see an acquaintance left in need. Under other circumstances, Flick may have been wary about what his gesture meant. But Rushe would pay Robert every cent they owed, even if he had to sell his soul to cover the bill.
‘Thank you,’ Flick said, still gracious despite her innocent suspicion.
‘Turns out to be irrelevant,’ he said.
‘What?’
‘Charges have been dropped,’ the officer said. ‘Guess your fiancé changed his mind. Domestic incidents make me crazy.’
‘Let’s get you out of here,’ Robert said. ‘I’ll take you to my place, and—‘
‘No,’ Flick said. ‘I need to go back to my parents. I don’t have time to waste. My family could be in danger, and I don’t want to be away from them.’
‘Away from them, or away from Rushe?’ he asked, wiping the amity from his expression and replacing it with curiosity. ‘You love him?’
‘Yes.’
‘You love a man who doesn’t return your affections?’
Taking a reflexive step backward, she frowned. ‘I am Rushe’s world.’
‘If that were the case, he would be here,’ Robert said. ‘You would never have been involved in anything criminal previous to your alliance with him. I am concerned for you, Felicity.’
‘I don’t need your concern, or your understanding. I appreciate your help tonight. Rushe will see to it that you are fully compensated if—‘
‘That’s not my concern.’
‘You’re not getting into my underwear.’
The groove between his brows furrowed. ‘That’s not my concern either.’
‘So what is?’ she asked.
‘If your family is left vulnerable because of—‘
‘Oh,’ Flick said, shifting her weight to her back foot. ‘You’re worried about your business interests. Why am I not surprised?’
‘Duke out your tiff at home. I’ve got real criminals to deal with,’ the cop said. Though Flick knew it was more likely he had an appointment with a TV show.
As their eyes locked, Robert stepped back out of the doorway. ‘Let’s get out of here,’ he said.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
It could only have been a few hours since she’d last been here at her parents’ house, but Flick craved the sight of Rushe, his embrace, his solace. Roger was parking the car, because the married steward and housekeeper would be the only two staff left on the premises at this time of night, and parking wasn’t part of their duties. So Flick walked through her parents’ front door with Robert and Lucia on her heels. The last thing she had expected to see was Liam and Tawny standing on the stairs, but there they were.
‘Flick!’ Liam exclaimed when he recognised her. He left Tawny’s side and hurried over to sweep Flick into his arms. ‘Are you ok?’
‘What are you doing here? I thought you guys were...’ hiding out, was the end of that sentence. But Flick couldn’t say those words aloud. ‘Why are you here?’
‘Rushe called,’ Tawny said. Liam moved aside so as not to restrict each woman’s view of the other. ‘He doesn’t like me to go far; we were in Boston.’
‘Strength in numbers,’ Liam said. ‘He wanted us here looking out for each other.’
‘What about Eric?’ Flick asked.
‘He stayed in New Jersey. He wanted to see Gracie again before…’
‘Yeah,’ Flick said, and glanced at the floor. In the intensity of this situation it was impossible to know what would happen next. ‘Rushe wanted you here?’
‘Your father assured him that there would be increased security,’ Liam said.
‘Increased security?’ Flick asked. Her attention snapped around when a side door opened, and she watched her parents emerge with Vivian. ‘You’ve hired extra security, Father?’
‘Yes,’ Charles said. ‘The men will be here shortly.’
‘Good,’ Flick said. ‘You have to let Rushe brief them. I know you like to be in charge, and of course you’ll be present, but Rushe knows—‘
‘Rushe has given his instructions to me,’ Charles said. ‘He issued them before his departure.’
‘He left?’ she breathed, and looked back to the now sheepish Liam.
‘Jansen paged Rushe; he’s discovered Serendipity’s location.’
‘Rushe is going to help him?’ Flick asked. ‘To retrieve Serendipity?’
‘Yes, Rushe called me after he spoke to Jansen, and then he got on the road before Tawn and I got here,’ Liam said.
‘It’ll take him all night to get down there,’ Flick said. ‘He has a few hours head start, but if we hurry we can catch—‘
On spinning around to aim for the exit, Robert caught her arm. ‘If security is coming here and you are in some sort of danger, then this is the place you need to stay,’ Robert said.
‘I’m not staying here,’ Flick said, yanking her arm away from his grasp. ‘I will not leave Rushe out there alone.’
‘He made sure you had a lawyer, and that your father had security in place, before he left,’ Liam said. ‘You’ll never catch up to him… unless you plan to break every speed limit.’
‘If I have to do that, then I will,’ she said. ‘I don’t give a damn.’
‘The troopers will when they pull you over,’ Robert said. ‘As they will if you plan to speed your way toward this danger.’
‘Is Eric still down there?’ Flick asked, flipping back around to seek out Liam, who still stood only a couple of feet from her, while Tawny remained at the foot of the stairs.
‘I haven’t been able to get in touch with him,’ Liam said. ‘I’ve been calling, but...’
‘He should know what’s going on,’ Flick said, trying to consider her options, but calm was quickly leaving her. ‘Rushe shouldn’t have left me here.’
‘We thought you’d be in jail all night. Rushe had to help Jansen with Serendipity,’ Liam said. ‘Jansen was there for you when you needed—‘
‘I’m not refuting that,’ Flick said. ‘Of course we should help Jansen. But if Rushe had waited for me to return—‘
‘Perhaps he didn’t want you involved in this danger,’ Robert interjected.
Despite the volume of people in the room, there wasn’t one person on her side. Her parents stood silently with Vivian. Lucia remained by the door, while Tawny held her position by the stairway. Flick didn’t know where Roger or Martin were, but her brothers in-law wouldn’t be big advocates for her or her cause. Robert was somewhere a few feet behind her. The last man here, Liam, was there in front of her, and when she lifted her eyes to his she beseeched him.
‘You know what I’m capable of,’ she said to him. ‘You know what lengths I’ll go to for Rushe. You’re the only one here who has witnessed that first hand. I have to go to him.’
‘And if you’re arrested again? Or worse?’ Liam asked. ‘Rushe was adamant about your sister going with you to the station, because he didn’t trust the cops to keep you safe.’
‘The cops up here aren’t connected with the ones down there in Mercier’s pocket.’
‘Maybe not enough to commit murder,’ Liam said. ‘But we can’t be sure he isn’t purchasing information. If Antoine knows that you’re out of jai
l now, if he knows that Rushe has left here—‘
‘How could he possibly know that Rushe left?’ she snapped. ‘I have to go.’
‘I’ll come with you,’ Robert said. ‘If you need support, I’ll be there for you, and it wouldn’t hurt to have a lawyer with you in case you do run into trouble with law enforcement.’
‘You’re a corporate lawyer,’ Flick said. ‘You deal with contracts and acquisitions.’
‘That’s more law school under my belt than you’ve got,’ he said.
‘This Antoine guy is dangerous,’ Liam said. ‘Flick, you can’t take the risk—‘
‘I have to do something!’ she asserted.
‘I don’t know how all of you can so easily assume that Antoine is a criminal,’ Lucia’s voice floated in from the background, but from the clack of heels on the marble floor Flick knew her sister was approaching.
‘Don’t defend him!’
Startling the group with her outburst was Tawny, who marched over to Liam’s side with rage in her countenance. ‘Tawn,’ Liam said, but she completely ignored him.
‘You have no idea what’s going on here,’ Tawny shouted at Lucia, who was clearly uncomfortable with such an uncouth display.
Flick was still in a state of shock that this young woman, who had seemed to hate her so much, was pouncing into the fray.
‘This is a guy who tried to force himself on your sister, and you want us to give him the benefit of the doubt?’ Tawny continued. ‘Nu-uh, not a chance, you give a guy like that a break and he’ll take it. He’ll walk all over you forever. Flick here slashed him good; you bet he’ll think twice about pressuring any girls in the future, but we don’t let him away with shit.’ Diverting the softening anger, Tawny looked to Flick. ‘You should go to Rushe.’
‘Thank you,’ Flick said. So it appeared she did have an ally after all.
‘Tawny, you can’t—‘
‘Yes, I can,’ Tawny said to Liam. ‘Rushe has been there for us. It’s only right that we should be there for him. If I could be any use—‘
‘He’ll want you safe,’ Flick said to her. ‘You stay here.’
‘You don’t think he’ll want you safe?’ Liam asked, flabbergasted by these women ganging up on him. ‘You can’t go down there. You don’t know where they are.’
‘Rushe must have called Jansen after the page,’ Flick said. ‘I can get the number from the phone memory.’
‘I have Jansen’s phone number,’ Liam sighed. ‘Rushe gave it to me… You can’t go rushing into this, Flick. If Antoine is still down there, then going back to him is insanity. I’ve heard about what he and his family do, about how they intimidate and torture.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I sought out the captains,’ Liam said. ‘While you were here... I went looking for them.’
‘And?’ Flick asked. ‘Did they give you evidence of the corruption or the Mercier connection?’
‘You could say that,’ Liam said. ‘The first captain, the one who was fired, gave me a lot of information about the Merciers, about how they started by paying him off, and how he got drawn in deep before he realised the extent of what the Merciers were into.’
‘That’s great,’ Flick said, bolstered by the development. ‘Gathering information is—‘
‘He committed suicide the next day,’ Liam said, and a chill flooded her.
‘Suicide?’
‘Shot himself in the head.’
This may or may not have been suicide. Flick had seen too much of the immorality that existed in this world to take that at face value. ‘Did you record your conversation with him?’
Liam nodded. ‘As per Rushe’s instructions. But I don’t see how that will help us. One man versus whatever the extent of this plot—‘
‘We need to get the evidence to those conducting the investigation,’ Flick said.
‘We can’t trust them, Rushe knew that.’
‘Did you find out why the second captain was destroying evidence? Or rather, who he was destroying it for?’
‘No,’ Liam said. ‘We haven’t been able to find him. He took off with his family. He’s married and has an eight year old daughter.’
‘They’re vulnerable. It makes sense that he would want to get them to somewhere safe.’ But that only frustrated her. ‘Jansen has to have something. He must be close.’
‘You don’t know that.’
‘Why else would the Merciers go for him when they did?’
‘Maybe they were sick of him sniffing around.’
‘Maybe,’ Flick said. No one else in the room had said anything for a while, but Flick was caught up in her conversation with Liam and didn’t care about them while progress was being made. ‘But if he has nothing, and we have nothing...’
‘We don’t have nothing. We carried on building a case. We have evidence of the truth,’ Liam said.
‘But nothing overwhelmingly compelling, or you’d have presented it,’ Flick said.
‘Everyone is safe. Rushe and Jansen will get Serendipity, and—‘
‘And then what? The Merciers are desperate. They’re not going to let us all walk away just because they were bested by us. They’ll have no prisoners and nothing to bargain with. Rushe taking the rap isn’t enough anymore. They’re going to want more.’
‘More?’ Liam asked. ‘Like what?’
‘Blood,’ she replied.
The word lingered in the air, moving between all of the bodies, echoing and vibrating while they all came to terms with just what that meant. A knock on the front door shattered the reflection and prevented any further discussion on the subject.
As he was presently the closest, Robert went to the door and Flick watched Liam return to Tawny. The woman looked up at him with big round eyes, the whites glowing in respect. When Liam’s fingertips touched her cheekbone, Tawny smiled, which made Flick smile too.
‘It’s security.’
Charles Hughes spoke, and Flick turned to see a squad of men in black enter. Usually the security professionals her father used were discreet and minimal. The Hughes family had never faced a threat like this before, and so security was more often a show piece than a requirement. The drivers were trained in combat and knew how to shoot, so that was usually enough of an escort for her and her sisters when they were growing up.
But these guys were different, bulky, and packing weapons. Tattoos were on show and some heads were shaved, while others sported facial hair. These weren’t standard, premium, elegant security men meant to ward off ardent fans. These were hardened men, who appeared more like criminals than saviours.
Flick counted the first ten in and was surprised to count another ten. While they moved around the perimeter of the room, none of them spoke. Then they began to move in, drawing her family and friends closer into the centre of the lobby.
Twenty-two men in total entered, and when Flick looked to her father to suggest overkill she was horrified to see his widened gaze and clammy skin. She’d never seen her father scared before, but she was sure that was the expression she witnessed now.
‘These aren’t your security guards,’ Flick said, at the same time the others in the group were cottoning on. These men drew even closer, forming a human cordon around the group until all eight were confined.
A silent thrum in the air buzzed like an amp turned up to maximum, a beat of silence interrupted, then another. The pulse became a heartbeat, but no one spoke. Flick reminded herself of Rushe’s patience. Silence was powerful, and if she was the one to break it then she’d be revealing her apprehension.
Fighting as hard as she could to don the mask that she’d seen Rushe wear, Flick blanked her expression and slowed her breathing, while focusing directly ahead.
‘What is going on here?’ Charles asked the security man nearest him, but these men weren’t the chatty type.
‘Charles?’ Beverly asked, and Flick heard the fear as strongly as she sensed it.
All of the group around her, her allies, were
scared, but Flick made herself stand tall. Someone touched her hand and she resisted the urge to lash out at the contact. Glancing downward, she saw Robert link his fingers between hers. The gesture was meant as consolation, but Flick wasn’t sure if it was for her wellbeing or his.
‘Ma chère,’ the rich male accent was laced with a perverted delight that made Flick wretch.
Between the thick arms of the men surrounding her group, Flick saw Antoine enter with his cousin, Simone. Flick had believed that Simone was still with Serendipity, but apparently not.
Antoine’s gait was slow. He shuffled, and after only a few steps he stopped, and though he tried to hide it, she saw him wince. Gone was the expensive designer suit, and instead he wore black sweat pants and a hooded sweatshirt that zipped up the front. If he’d had his wound stitched and bandaged, the unrestrictive clothing would be required not to irritate the dressing.
‘I hoped you’d have bled out by now,’ Flick growled.
‘Your aim is not very good,’ he said. ‘Flesh wound.’
As much as she had no interest in going to jail for attempted murder, she wouldn’t have minded causing some lasting damage. Though if the way he stooped was anything to go by, it was possible that he was in more pain than he let on.
‘What are you doing here?’ she asked.
‘I came to get my ring back.’
‘I don’t have it,’ Flick said.
‘This is about an engagement ring?’ Robert asked.
‘He’s being facetious,’ Flick said, and when Antoine lifted his attention, he only now realised that she could see him through the narrow space between biceps. ‘Rushe isn’t here.’
‘I didn’t want Rushe here,’ Antoine said. ‘Rushe is on his way to rescue a relatively unprotected Serendipity, because we knew that your friend Jansen would call on him to do so.’
‘It’s a trap,’ she whispered, and tried to push through the human barrier. The goons closed ranks, making it impossible for her to pass and obscuring her view of their captors. ‘Are you going to kill him, is that the—‘
‘Non!’ Antoine said with a spiteful laugh. ‘He is going to complete the task that we could not. He will retrieve the evidence that Jansen has spent all of these months collecting. We did not realise how devious the officer was. But he has compelling evidence against me and my family, which we cannot allow to become public.’
Explicit Memory Page 29